Cashed-up executive or myki mouse caught in ticketing trap?

By William Birnbauer

THE software whiz who quietly helped determine how millions of people around the world pay for daily travel on public transport knows only too well that, in his game, publicity is bound to be bad.

Until he quit his $445,000- a-year job last week as head of Victoria's Transport Ticketing Authority, Vivian Miners managed to keep a remarkably low public profile for 30 years. He uttered hardly a word in public, other than a few bland lines in press releases, before appearing last week before a state parliamentary committee.

The ticketing authority's task was to produce a modern system to replace the ageing Metcard. The then-transport minister, Peter Batchelor, was confident Miners could do the job on budget and on time. The target date was 2007, but Transport Minister Lynne Kosky has admitted it will be at least 2010.

Advertisement

Could it be that Miners anticipated the delays that would beset the introduction of the myki system? And that one day a scapegoat would be necessary?

He would have known that the international smartcard market is tough, competitive and notoriously litigious.

A handful of global players chase contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. It can be dirty. "Playing tough by manipulating media by leaking tender information is a hallmark of some of the companies in the market," Miners told the parliamentary committee.

Because each city's software requirements differ, complex technical difficulties commonly lead to long delays in getting systems going. When he took the job, Miners must have been aware that disasters could be just ahead. Melbourne's ticketing needs were knotty — a multi-modal, time and zone-based system with many pensioner, student and other concessions.

He had worked as chief technology officer for ERG, the Perth-based software company now being sued for $95 million by the NSW Government over the much-delayed introduction of the Tcard system. (ERG is counter-suing the NSW Government for $250 million over "unlawful" termination of its contract.)

While at ERG, Miners worked on smartcard introductions in Singapore, San Francisco and elsewhere. The San Francisco project is now running two years late and the head of San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit authority wants to dump ERG.

In 1998, Miners was a senior executive with the hi-tech consulting firm James Martin & Co (now Headstrong), which rescued the troubled introduction of the Octopus smartcard in Hong Kong.

But the man who was until last week the highest paid public servant in the state, felt obliged to quit just hours before appearing before a parliamentary committee to answer questions about the myki tender.

He has not commented publicly on his exit other than to say it was by "mutual agreement".

Associates say he is a shy but focused man, highly paid due to his technical expertise and experience with transit smartcards.

Senior transport insiders found him to be distant, almost aloof. Says one: "You won't find that many people who can say, 'I know him quite well'. We've worked with him for three or four years but we haven't found a way to think we know him all that well."

The source said Miners had become a lame duck — and was then nobbled. Tendering for the $494 million contract, valued at a further $500 million over the 10 years of its operation, was mired in controversy.

There were leaks of Transport Ticketing Authority documents detailing the rival bids of three shortlisted consortiums and another leak of draft documents (written by investigators from the Auditor-General's office) that raised concerns about the tender process. Some of those concerns were omitted from the Auditor-General's final report.

It was also revealed that Miners had shares in Headstrong, which was involved with two of the tendering consortiums. He had worked for Headstrong and its predecessor, James Martin & Co, for 15 years.

Miner's shareholdings in Headstrong and his history with several members of tendering consortiums gave him a high conflict of interest rating.

The Auditor-General found no evidence of corruption, but suggested more should have been done to address perceived conflicts of interest stemming from Miner's shareholdings.

ERG also bid for the myki contract but dropped out in 2005. Soon after, it joined Keane Australia Micropayment Consortium, known as Kamco, which was awarded the contract in July 2005.

Miners told the parliamentary committee that in the end the victims of the global ticketing market were the customers — governments, public transport users and taxpayers. And, although he did not say so, possibly himself.